Can We Do More to Help New Grads Find Work

Can We Do More to Help New Grads Find Work The economy is improving, but recent college grads are still having a rough time in the real world. According to theEconomic Policy Institute, recent college graduates face an 8.5 percent unemployment rate and a 16.8 percent underemployment rate. We can partially blame the economy for this, but we can also chalk some of it up to the mistakes that young job seekers make. Some recent grads dont apply to enough jobs 44 percent of them only apply to five jobs at a time. Many grads also fail to take advantage of the Web only 26 percent of them try to find jobs through social media sites. (Stats viaForbes.)But regardless of where we lay the blame, we need a solution. My question is can we employers, recruiters, HR professionals, and all the other players inthe hiring apparatus do more to help new graduates find work?The Association of American Colleges Unive rsities (AACU) seems to think so and I agree.How Employers Fail Recent GradsIn the Spring of 2013, Debra Humphreys, vice president of the amtsstube of communications, policy, and public engagement at AACU, made a bold statementEmployers may need to alter their recruiting and hiring practices in order to discover talent wherever it can be found in colleges and universities. While AACU respects the opinions of the geschftsleben and nonprofit leaders who have participated in ur surveys, we do not presume that their recruiting and hiring practices are fully aligned with what is needed for the long-term success of either their employees or their businesses or organizations.As an example of employers poor hiring practices, Humphreys cites the ATS, calling it a destructive technologyand lamenting the wayit works against the effort to find the best educated and most talented graduates.Humphreys is not alone in condemning the use of ATSs these facile systems turn the complex process of recr uiting intoa game of superficial buzzwords, and manyin the hiring industry agree with Humphreys. Liz Ryan of the Human Workplace drove the point home when she wroteApplicant tracking systems dont inquire about what you learned at a job, what you left in your wake, or what you view as your greatest accomplishment. Our selection mechanism is stuck in 1940, interested only in the tasks and duties and tools you used, as though those things out of context could have any significance to your next boss at all.Aside from ATSs that filter candidates based on insubstantial criteria, the hiring world has another problem the so-called skills gap. In the past, Ive argued that employers perpetuate the very skills gap they bemoanby fetishizing passive candidates and failing toinvest in training programs that would help entry-level employees and recent graduates learn necessary,job-specific skills. I stand by these assertions very little has changed since the March in which Imade that assessment.Bu ilding Partnerships between Educators and EmployersAgain I dont want to spend too much time playing the blame game. Regardless of who is at fault, the factstillremains recent grads face a bleak employment situation, and we need to change that for the good of our nation as a whole.Unfortunately, companies can be notoriously selfish, prone to dismiss any call to action that does not serve their bottom line. So lets put the problem of un- and underemployment for recent grads in business-friendly terms employers can either choose tosit back and wait for the skills gap to solve itself, or they can take an active role in solving it.To help improve the employment outlook for recent grads and solve the skills gap, in a way the AACU has started the LEAP Employer-Educator Compact.This initiative brings together college and university presidents and business and nonprofit leaders for the purpose of working together to provide more opportunities for internships and experiential learning, whic h better prepare recent grads for the job market.This is how we solve both the skills gap and the employment crisis for young workers partnerships between educators and employers, where both parties take active roles in cultivating the future workforce. As Humphreys says,Forward-thinking business and nonprofit leaders know that their future successand the future success of our nationdepends on whether our colleges and universities graduate liberally educated professionals who are prepared to fuel innovation and effective problem solving in fast-paced global environments.Employers, recruiters, HR pros, and all the rest, I leave you with a questionwould you like to join the forward-thinkers, or would you rather voluntarily cling to the (bleak) past?